


Martyr's Palm

by AdelaCathcart



Category: His Dark Materials (TV), His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
Genre: Angst, Closet Sex, Dry Humping, Enemy Lovers, F/M, Fellatio, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:29:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29357256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdelaCathcart/pseuds/AdelaCathcart
Summary: He won’t approach her here, surely, not with all these people around to see, but he excuses himself from his companions, and his dæmon is already stalking towards her, and she realizes of course that’s exactly what he’ll do. She turns her back abruptly and begins to walk away, but slowly, so that with his long strides he overtakes her on the stairs. His fingertips kiss her bare shoulder blade as he nudges her out of the way, but at the same moment he speaks low by her ear. “The cloakroom in five minutes,” he mutters, “or so help me I’ll have you right here on the carpet.”
Relationships: Lord Asriel/Marisa Coulter
Comments: 16
Kudos: 29





	Martyr's Palm

**Author's Note:**

> “Such extreme pleasure is also a humiliation. It’s like being hauled along by a shameful rope, a leash around the neck.” —Margaret Atwood, _The Blind Assassin_
> 
>  _Q: how does he love you?  
>  A: with boldness  
> Q: and how does he look at you?  
> A: with grief_  
> — Salma Deera, “Joan of Arc in Interview”

It’s been six weeks since they last saw each other and it’s driving her to distraction; it’s midwinter but Marisa is as jumpy as a doe in spring. He’s reached out, of course, though she warned him not to, by those clandestine channels established long ago: the chalk-marked tree, a certain book placed in a certain window. She varies her routine to avoid those places and tells herself she isn’t thinking of him, that he no longer has power over her, and the persistent pain in her chest is just a cough and not a particularly ruinous form of desire. Her self-deception is so entire that she attends the opening reception for a new exhibit at the Royal Geological Museum unescorted, because it makes no difference to her that he may be there.

But of course he is there, and she wants him as badly as ever.

He appears to her first by some sense other than sight, and a shudder moves through her, a heavy footstep on her grave. He looks up as if someone had called his name. On the first pass his gaze slides right by, seeming not to recognize her. She waits, watching for the twitch of surprise in his brow which comes a moment later. With the second pass he spots her, and his black eyes pin her to the wall.

He won’t approach her here, surely, not with all these people around to see, but he excuses himself from his companions, and his dæmon is already stalking towards her, and she realizes of course that’s exactly what he’ll do. She turns her back abruptly and begins to walk away, but slowly, so that with his long strides he overtakes her on the stairs. His fingertips kiss her bare shoulder blade as he nudges her out of the way, but at the same moment he speaks low by her ear. “The cloakroom in five minutes,” he mutters, “or so help me I’ll have you right here on the carpet.”

The air’s too thin as he vanishes into the lobby, elegant and nonchalant—no, presumptuous, insufferable. She’s furious. Driven by spite she sets her wristwatch two minutes slow to keep him waiting, not that it matters, since she isn’t going to go. Instead she gets a glass of champagne and drinks it too fast, admires a recently-unearthed fossil of bitter dock-leaves in their ancient mud, visits the lavatory.

Returning to the exhibit, she is surprised to find herself passing by the door of the cloakroom. She opens it. Her dæmon hides his face.

“You took your time,” a harsh deep voice says from the shadows. She cannot see him but large hands rest loosely around her waist and Asriel backs her into the wall.

“Five minutes,” she argues, though of course it was longer than that. His parted lips brush hers, nothing more than an exchange of humid breath; she leans closer for a kiss and he pulls back. His tongue darts briefly into her mouth.

“An eternity,” he counters. “You haven’t missed me at all, then.”

“No, not at all,” she begins to say, but he chooses that moment to close his lips on hers, and he doesn’t even need to call her a liar, because she falls apart in his arms like wet tissue paper, like a rose left too long on the vine. She forgets herself; her arms bind him to her of their own accord. He’s hitching her leg up around his hip, fumbling with the front of his trousers, and he has his cock in his hand ready to penetrate her, but she pushes it away sharply. “There’s no time for that now, have you lost your mind?”  
  
“Yes,” he says with a shrug.

She plucks his penis out of his strong fingers and squeezes it, and the back of his head hits the wall with a thud. One hand droops limply over his chest, as if to hide his heart, and she crouches and licks him teasingly. He groans. Hurriedly, she places her clutch under her knees and tucks her skirt up off the floor, then she opens his trousers completely and wraps her lips around the head of his cock.

“Marisa…”

Her face is full of his scent: the sandalwood soap he uses and his skin underneath, fresh and dark as the sea at night; she sinks deeply over him; she is ravenous for it. She loves him like this, held entirely in her mouth like an unspoken secret, with the illusion that this love is something she will be able to contain. He gives himself so easily, as if he has no ego to protect. She wonders how he does it.

“Is there—time for—?” he gasps.

“Maybe. If you don’t hold back.”

“Mm. Will you just—“ He finds her hand at rest on his thigh and guides it behind his testicles, and when she begins to massage him there he gives a deep moan of satisfaction, stroking her working jaw and cheek with the ball of his thumb. She has him now, she knows, so she stalks him with the lazy patience of a lioness coursing a lame wildebeest. Then she senses the intake of breath, the muscles jumping, his fist which softly pounds against the wall. She sips the semen spilling from his body, as saints are known to drink from the sores of lepers.

No doubt moved by some hormonal intoxication, he murmurs, very quietly, “I hate being without you,” and she is mortified and pretends she doesn’t hear. He sighs and does up his clothes, not bothering to help her to her feet, but when she reaches for the door handle he stops her hand with his. “Wait.”

“I have to go.”

He pulls her against his chest. The shank buttons of his waistcoat dig into her bare back, leaving, she imagines, twin rows of marks like cupping bruises. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and bites her there. “Don’t!” she says, and smacks him, but he has taken advantage of her distraction, and one of his legs has slid between hers, nudging her into widening her stance, and he has already laid a hand at the crux of her thighs. His other arm is firm around her waist, and she realizes he’s expecting her to run. He’s right to think that. But his hand feels very sweet, very warm on her cunt through her clothes, she can’t quite bring herself to fight it, and she twists to the side to kiss his mouth before he can laugh at her weakness.

Too rough, he’s always too rough, sparing no more consideration for her than does a man dying of thirst for the well he drinks from. Surely he can hear the cat’s-tongue rasp of her taffeta gown as he rubs it into the lace she wears beneath, and into the hair under that; he must feel the painful friction he’s creating as his middle finger digs into the seam between her lips. Any minute now he’ll throw the skirt over her head and soothe that searing touch with his cool tongue, relieve the awful empty ache deep in her belly, perform his sleight-of-hand that makes it feel like love.  
  
But he does not.  
  
“Asriel, I have to—“ she says at last, cringing at the whine in her voice.

“Then go, damn you,” he snarls, crushing her against his palm. His cheek is brutally rough on hers. He keeps his beard longer in the arctic, of course, but at home it’s short and bristly and will leave scour-burns on her thighs. His kisses scald her throat. She clings to him all the same. He loosens his hold on her waist but her legs won’t move, her hips only curl upwards for his hand.

She doesn’t go.

His caresses have grown lighter and more precise; he’s found the little point now peeking out between her lips, even through the gown and through the lace, and focused his attention there. He’s going to bring her off just like this, without fucking her, without even touching her bare skin.

“Get out,” he lies huskily. “I won’t miss you. I won’t even think of you. I never do, you know, when you’re away.”

She feels his breath blow hot against her face, so hot she can almost see the air around them trembling. A low sizzling sound is filling the small room: it’s Stelmaria; a passionate rumble rings in her big chest, upon which the monkey, that traitor, is perched, running his claws roughly through her fur, straddling her so her pleasure vibrates in his little bones. Asriel’s touch is so negligent that Marisa has to strain and buck to make contact with his hand. With a last groan of complaint she turns to face him, hooking her own leg to his hip, and grinds herself to pieces against his thigh, horribly conscious of the lack of him even as her mind dissolves, her cunt grasping desperately at nothing.

She wants to cry. He waits with resignation, as if she were having a seizure instead of an orgasm.

“Well?” he says hollowly, once it passes.

The monkey squeals in protest when she seizes the scruff of his neck and rips him away from his lover, but then he goes slack in her embrace, too wise to fight. This time when she grabs for the doorknob Asriel only moves out of her way.

After that she doesn’t hear from him for months.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally published under the placeholder title "He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead," after the poem by William Butler Yeats, and changed to its current title on February 17, 2021.
> 
> With apologies to Margaret Atwood, whose _The Blind Assassin_ the first paragraph of this story was plainly inspired by. 
> 
> Special thanks to @mrscoultxr on tumblr who introduced me to the painfully apt Salma Deera quote.
> 
> Thank you for reading!


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